Johan Thorn Prikker (1886-1932) was a rebel, a moralist and a hard worker. This makes his eclectic oeuvre of paintings, drawings, prints, textiles, furniture and monumental works surprising and multifaceted, but not always easy.

Thorn Prikker expert Christiane Heiser, who wrote the introduction for this exhibition catalogue, invited thirteen authors from the Netherlands, Germany and Canada to shed light on this work and the context in which it was made. They chose thirteen different themes that together create a balanced picture of the active life of this creative artist.

Thorn Prikker began his career in The Hague, where he was expelled from the academy because of his headstrong behaviour, but where he also painted the finest Dutch Symbolist works. At the end of his life he was working in the German Rhineland as a universally respected designer of stained glass windows and monumental murals. As his style and techniques constantly changed, so too did the way his work was received - and this did not alter with his death in 1932: each successive generation seems to have judged his work differently. This book explores his reputation as it stands today.